N. Korea rejects UN rights report as 'fabrication'

SEOUL -- North Korea on Friday “categorically” rejected a U.N. report on its human rights record, accusing it of being a “sheer fabrication” invented by the United States and its allies.

A U.N. report released Monday said North Korea's leaders should be brought before an international court for a litany of crimes against humanity.

The report by the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea found “systemic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed” by North Korea, its institutions and officials.

“The so-called Commission of Inquiry was deceitfully put together last year by the United States and its cronies ... and we've never acknowledged even its existence,” a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said.

“The so-called report by the puppet commission is a ragtag of cooked-up materials fed by hostile forces, criminals who escaped punishment in the country and other tramps. We categorically reject it,” he was quoted as saying by KCNA.

The spokesman condemned as “far-fetched” the assertion that North Korea's leaders should be brought before an international court for a litany of crimes against humanity that include exterminating, starving and enslaving its population.

He also accused the United States of being “the worst human rights abuser who killed innocent people through aggression and intervention, and systematically committed illegal wire-tapping and surveillance not only over its own citizens but those of other countries.”